UcanUwill wrote:That said, we need to remember how much bigger NBA salaries are, compared yo even other players playing same sport. Best non NBA players will get 3 mil tops, you can still buy good Euroleague player for 600k, and majority of pro basketball players around the world, are still way worse than a good Euroleague player.
EuroLeague pays quite a bit more than that.
Listed and reported EuroLeague salaries are the net income amount, while the NBA listed and reported salaries are the gross income amount. Which is obviously a huge difference. So 3 million in EuroLeague, is more like 6 million in the NBA. Also, the highest paid players in Europe have been making around 4-5 million a year in net income (so again double that for NBA), since the 1990s. Since the 1990s, the highest salaries in Europe are consistently well over 3 million per season. And obviously way over that amount if you factor inflation into it. In some cases, the highest paid players in Europe made a lot more than 3 million a season, even without accounting for inflation. Guys like Childress and Mirotic made way more than that, and so have many other players in Europe. If you add inflation in, 3 million isn't even considered a high salary at all historically for the top players. Even like 25-30 years ago, guys like Petrovic, Sabonis, Radja, Kukoc, Galis, Wilkins, and so forth, were making more than 3 million, and in some cases way more than that. Around 15 or so years ago, there were numerous players in Europe making more than that, even if they didn't even play at the EuroLeague level, and instead played in lower level leagues. And again, that's not even accounting for inflation.
As far as EuroLeague players, even good ones, making 600K a season, again, that is net salary, not gross salary. So that's more like 1.2 million in NBA salary. Plus, the salaries in EuroLeague have skyrocketed it recent years, since the pandemic ended. The average EuroLeague salary, if you put it into gross terms like NBA salaries always, are and convert it from the Euro to the US dollar, is now around $2.7 million US dollars gross per season. And if we are comparing EuroLeague salaries to NBA salaries, there is no reason at all to not compare them in the net income salary amount, because NBA player's incomes are always only listed by the gross amount. So $2.7 million US dollars gross per season is the current EuroLeague average salary. That's almost as much as you are saying is the max amount any player can earn.
And clearly, the salaries in EuroLeague are increasing, because prior to the pandemic, the average EuroLeague salary, in gross terms and in US dollars, was around $1.5 million. So the salaries have almost doubled in recent years.